


In All the Ways We Roam

by Vagrant_Blvrd



Series: Spin the Sky [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 10:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15363039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vagrant_Blvrd/pseuds/Vagrant_Blvrd
Summary: Curses abound in their world, it’s true. Offended egos and too much power granted them through one turn of fate or another and there’s always some poor bastard who ends up the worst off.





	In All the Ways We Roam

**Author's Note:**

> Picks up after the events in [Through Shapes and Shadows](https://vagrantblvrd.tumblr.com/post/172972191531/through-shapes-and-shadows-11) and inspired by an exchange with Miss-ingno. :D???

Gavin attempts to play his injuries off, citing past instances where he’d sustained worst and been fine but Michael ignores him.

Knows that for Gavin to make even so much as a passing comment about his injuries they must be hurting. 

He’ll wail about some small hurt, a slip of the knife while preparing dinner or hitting a toe against the heavy wood furniture of their bedroom in the night, but anything else and it’s of little concern.

Michael makes a tea Gavin’s made for him time and again in the past. Herbs and such to help dull the pain, and Michael he won't wake until long past dawn. It will give his body time to rest longer than the idiot himself will allow. 

Gavin gives him a look when Michael presents it to him, hot and steaming and vile scent to it to match the flavor. Foul thing, but its medicinal properties are known far and wide and when Gavin drinks it without complaint past that, Michael knows he needed it.

He waits until sleep has claimed Gavin before he sets to examining the knife.

Fine workmanship, although that could be a result of the magics involved to create such a thing.

He feels a cool presence slide into his mind the moment he unsheathes the knife, sharp edges to it that have Michael frowning to himself.

 _Did you_ drug _him?_

Michael ignores the knife, although he is surprised at the note of worry he catches. Wouldn't have expected if of the kind of person who's managed to become cursed. Was the sort who _turned into knife._

Curses abound in their world, it’s true. Offended egos and too much power granted them through one turn of fate or another and there’s always some poor bastard who ends up the worst off. 

Usually it’s the ones who are meant to learn a lesson from it all. Egos of their own, haughty arrogance and too much pride to do anyone good. Forced to learn humbleness through a harsh lesson. But there are those who will never learn, dark and twisted and looking to take anyone who crosses their paths down with them and no knowing which you have on your hands until it’s too late.

Those cursed too often take on forms that reflect their flaws, but what does it say about someone who becomes a weapon?

There’s a heavy silence in the back of Michael’s mind where the knife has chosen to settle, cool and dark and so very telling.

“I thought so,” he murmurs, wondering what sort of trouble Gavin’s managed to bring to their doorstep this time.

There had been a moment of concern for Michael when he lifted the knife off of Gavin. The possibility that its curse was specific in who it allowed the knife to communicate with, but that doesn't seem to be a reason to worry. Not when the damn thing is poking and prodding at Michael. Becoming increasingly concerned as to what he plans to do with it as it picks up on Michael's distrust.

Gavin’s always had an eye for trouble, whether it be in the form of small, harmless pranks or chancing upon an old woman at the marketplace peddling cursed objects. 

It’s brought adventure into their lives more than once, and for once Michael had thought that was over. Hoped – foolishly, it seems – that that portion of their lives was over with, that they’d earned their right to quiet lives on a small patch of land.

 _In my defense,_ the knife says, quietly offended. _I didn’t ask for this._

Michael snorts.

Those who become cursed like this never do, at least in words. It’s their actions that tend to lead to situations like this, and if the knife can’t seem to recognize that yet, then it seems it still hasn’t learned its lesson.

There’s no response from the knife, but there’s a different quality to the silence in his mind now. 

Satisfied he’s made his point, Michael heads out to the garden behind their home. They've worked hard to reclaim their small parcel of land from the forest boundaries, An old farm that had been abandoned long ago they’d liked the looks of when they first came across it. 

They’d struck a deal with the nearby villagers, then.

Michael and Gavin working to keep the local predator population to manageable levels for a nearly forgotten piece of land bordering the nearby woods. Somewhere no one in the village wanted because the soil was poor and it was too far from the village for an easy life.

They’ve put countless hours and blood and sweat and aching muscles into making the soil rich again to support a small garden, clearing the small field for the crops they hope to grow one day. Tearing out rotting wood and beams in the ramshackle house and rebuilding it from the ground up. 

_What are you doing?_

Michael smiles at the apprehension in the knife’s voice.

“Chores,” Michael says simply, and pulls the knife with its delicate engraving from its pretty little sheath and sets to weeding as though it were a common gardening tool.

He can feel the knife’s shock as he works his way down the first row, this space in his head -

 _Are you using me to_ weed _your garden_?

Definite affront to the knife’s voice at the mere thought Michael would use it for something like this.

“I asked Gavin to see about getting us new gardening tools at the marketplace as he was the one responsible for our old ones going missing,” Michael says, leaning back on his heels. “And when he was late coming back, I decided to go look for him.”

Pulled on his armor that had seen little use recently. Well cared for even now because only a fool allows the things that have kept him alive to fall into disrepair. (A familiar weight that felt like taking his first breath in a long time and this slow burn of guilt at the thought.)

Gavin has a far better sense of direction than Michael, and he knows the woods better than anyone Michael’s ever met.

That hadn’t been the root of the worry that had taken hold Michael when Gavin wasn’t home when he said he would be. The kind of worry born of past experiences (what Gavin likes to call adventures, like something out of a child’s story) and Gavin himself.

He’d waited too long, he felt. Trusting in Gavin and knowing there were reasons for him to be late that had nothing to do with the sort of trouble they were both intimately familiar with.

Someone in the village wanting a moment of his time and Gavin losing track of the late hour, or some incident that might close the roads. A number of things and Michael stupidly pushing his worry aside because they were meant to be safe here.

No more trouble at their doorstep or Gavin’s adventures dragging them into danger once more.

As though they hadn’t noticed the oddness in the woods, creeping dread where there had been none before. Strange occurrences that seemed to happen more and more as time went by neither of them spoke of as though doing so would make them real. Shatter whatever peace they’d managed to find here.

Michael laughs, short, sharp sound that startles a little bird searching for insects in the grass nearby. 

The knife is so, so quiet now. Cool presence in the back of Michael’s head that’s stopped its cautious exploration of the thoughts he’s allowed it access to.

“So you can see why I wasn’t pleased to discover he’d bought a knife instead.” 

Michael smiles a little at the way the knife has noticed the anger seeping in, slowly but surely. Like banked embers.

_Ah._

As much as Michael is tempted to hide the knife away or fling it into the river. Go into the mountains and fling it from the highest peak, it’s too late for that.

Gavin told him what he knew before Michael had sent him to bed, the medicinal tea already at work. The things in the woods and the knife’s claim to know the story behind it all.

He knows the way this goes. Things have already been set into motion and they’re just a couple of fools who have managed to get themselves tangled up in this twisted little plot.

_For whatever it’s worth, I am sorry about that._

It’s a nice sentiment, but does nothing to change the situation.

Michael looks at the knife in his hands, dirt smeared along the dark red leather, clinging the edge of the blade.

A tool in the most basic sense, a weapon in any other.

“I want you to remember something,” Michael says, gratified to know he has the knife’s full attention. “If something should happen to Gavin, I know someone who will make your curse seem a blessing in comparison.”

Fond of Gavin, and powerful enough to see whatever punishment they deem suitable through.

 _I can’t promise you that,_ the knife says, and it’s softly spoken, regret laced through it. _You know that._

Michael's estimation of the knife rises slightly at its words. Pleased that it didn’t immediately offer up promises it has no way of keeping. 

“I know,” he says, and wipes the blade of the knife against his leg to cleans the dirt off as he stands. Gavin should be waking soon, and then perhaps they can get to the matter of things now that they’ve been drawn into another of his adventures. “I felt you should be warned ahead of time.”

Another stretch of silence follows his words, something thoughtful to it.

 _Who are you_? It asks, thread of concern to the words as though the knife has finally considered it may have landed in the wrong hands.

“No one,” Michael says, and in a manner of speaking it’s true.

The two of them are a pair of nobodies, a war orphan and a foundling who’d stumbled upon each other by chance and bound together by circumstance, and yet - 

_I find that hard to believe_.

Fate has a way of delivering them into these situations, fickle and carefree and laughing at them all the way.

“And I find it hard to believe you’re completely innocent in the matter of your curse,” Michael says, “so I suppose that makes us even on that count.”

The knife is silent once more, and Michael takes care as he sheathes it, careful to knock the dirt from the dyed leather and heads for the house he has a feeling he won’t see again soon.

Another adventure and a new traveling companion to join them. And for all the trepidation Michael feels at what the future may hold for them, he can’t deny the guilty sense of relief as he leaves the garden behind.


End file.
